The Weekenders

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “Man,” she said, breathing out. “I forget how amazing this is. Every winter, back in Raleigh, when it’s cold and gray and dreary, I wish I could be right back here, just soaking up all this sunshine. You were right. This is just what I needed.”

  “I’m almost always right,” Parrish said. “You need to keep that in mind.”

  They parked their gear on a level patch of sand. “Come on,” Parrish said, after spreading a towel on her chair. “Let’s go exploring.”

  The tide was out, so they splashed through ankle-deep water, stooping occasionally to pick up shells, or stopping to marvel at a school of dolphins dipping and cutting through the waves on a path that paralleled theirs for so long the two friends joked that they were being followed.

  At the far north tip of the island, where the ocean met the river, the shoreline receded into a rocky jetty. The two women clambered over boulders slick with algae, then climbed onto the seawall and gazed toward the maritime forest just ahead.

  “Take a good look now,” Riley advised. “Because a year from now, this will probably be either a Howard Johnson’s or a Motel Six.”

  “Stop being such a pessimist. Did Nate Milas actually buy this parcel? I thought your grandfather left it in some sort of trust.”

  “He did, but Wendell was scheming to do some kind of land swap to move the sanctuary to a piece of swamp in the middle of the island—a piece without that all-important waterfront access,” Riley said. “He said that was a condition the hotel people insisted on. They claimed they’d keep the preserve, but they just wanted to pave what they called ‘access trails’—otherwise known as roads—through it.”

  “And did Wendell manage to do that?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, before you start assuming this is all gonna turn into a HoJo, maybe you should do some research. Maybe you could actually have a discussion with Nate.”

  “Not happening,” Riley said flatly.

  “You’re going to have to talk to him sooner or later. He now owns a big chunk of this island. What he does is going to impact your family’s business, and vice versa.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Riley pressed onward, drawn toward the wildlife sanctuary just ahead. A bronze plaque marked the entrance to the area.

  DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF EARLINE RILEY, WHOSE LOVE OF NATURE INSPIRED ALL SHE KNEW. Beneath the words was a silhouette of Riley’s grandmother. As always, she placed the palm of her hand on the sign. “Hi, Nanny,” she whispered.

  She’d always thought the wildlife sanctuary was the most magical spot on the island, and it still held a powerful sway on her imagination. She stepped over the trunk of a sun-bleached live oak, so battered by wind that its branches were nearly parallel to the sandy soil.

  The temperature dropped noticeably once she was beneath the tree canopy.

  “Here,” Parrish said, catching up. “Bug spray.”

  As they wandered among the live oaks, red cedars, and bay laurels, they heard a loud flapping sound and looked up to see a pair of snowy egrets rising from the top of the canopy.

  “Remember when we were in Girl Scouts and Roo brought us out here to count species for our bird-watching badge?” Riley asked.

  “I’d never seen a cedar waxwing before,” Parrish said. “And I’ll never forget when we climbed that tree and peeked inside that huge nest and saw all those just-hatched white ibis.”

  “Remember how we’d make little fairy houses in the crooks of the live oaks?” Parrish asked, leaning against a tree trunk.

  “And plan which tree we’d live in after we ran away from home,” Riley said. “And then Billy did run away when he was nine and Daddy tried to make him join the swim team, and that lasted about two hours, until he got hungry and scared when he heard a hoot owl.”

  As they got deeper into the maritime forest, they pushed aside branches of holly, yaupon, and wild olive, flinching when catbrier branches scratched their bare ankles.

  After thirty minutes, they emerged from the undergrowth to find themselves in a wide, sandy area.

  “Son of a bitch,” Riley exclaimed. The exposed roots of bulldozed old-growth live oaks reached like ugly tentacles into the sky. Blackened tree stumps poked from the soil, and a huge stack of newly cut trees had been scraped to one side of the land like so many pickup sticks, where a bright yellow Bobcat was apparently stuck in a patch of mud.

  “Oh, no,” Parrish said, looking around in dismay. “Do you think Wendell did this?”

  “Who else? I’m pretty sure this is the start of the Pirate’s Point tract, where the hotel was supposed to go.” She did a quick about-face. “Let’s go back to the beach. This is too depressing.”

  * * *

  “Speaking of Wendell,” Parrish said, as they returned to their gear, “have you guys figured out a succession plan yet?”

  “That’ll be up to Mama. You know, Wendell liked to think of himself as a one-man show. For now, Bruce Boore, who ran the office in Wilmington and handled the sales and marketing end of things, is coming down on Monday. He’s been doing the nitty-gritty stuff, dealing with the tenants in the village and fielding inquiries about lot sales and stuff. And I guess he’s been staving off our creditors. I’ve been dreading all those credit card statements we found in Wendell’s office.”

  “You won’t be liable for all those debts,” Parrish said. “At least, I don’t think so.”

  “If I am, I am,” Riley said. “I’ve already lost my house, so what else are they gonna do to me? They can’t get blood from a turnip, right?”

  She reached into the cooler bag Parrish had provided and brought out a thermos bottle, which she opened.

  “Margaritas! Nice touch,” she said, pouring a stream of the chartreuse drink into an insulated plastic tumbler and offering it to her friend.

  “Not for me, thanks,” Parrish said hastily. “The older I get, the more I realize I can’t drink in the heat of the day without earning myself a wicked headache.”

  “I can,” Riley said, taking a swig of her cocktail. She stood up, stripped off her bathing suit cover-up, and began applying sunscreen. She glanced over at Parrish, who was uncapping a bottle of water, still dressed in her calf-length gauzy cotton caftan.

  “Aren’t you hot in that getup?”

  “Nope,” Parrish said, ratcheting down the back of her chaise longue and tilting her sun hat over her face. “We fair-skinned redheads have to be careful of too much exposure, you know.”

  “You’re not the least bit fair skinned, and you’re not a real redhead either,” Riley said.

  “Sun is very aging,” Parrish said airily. “But if you want to end up looking like a piece of beef jerky, go right ahead.”

  “Aging,” Riley said with a sigh. “That again.”

  Parrish tipped her sunglasses down. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve started job hunting. That’s what I was doing when you showed up at the house.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. You know what a tiny market Raleigh is. There was an opening for a consumer affairs reporter at WRAL.”

  “Perfect!”

  “Yeah, for a twenty-four-year-old Asian bombshell two years out of Duke and a graduate degree from Columbia,” Riley said. “Jade Kang. Can you believe it? And that’s her real name. I even went so far as to call my old program director.” She shuddered. “I groveled. It wasn’t pretty. He was very nice and promised to ‘seriously consider’ me, but I knew it wasn’t gonna happen.”

  “Aw, man, that’s so unfair. And shortsighted. You would have been ratings dynamite again. Nobody in this state had a following like you.”

  “Had,” Riley said. “Past tense.”

  “But you’ve got until August when school starts to find something, right?” Parrish asked.

  “That’s only a little over a month away. I’ll tell you, I’ve even started looking outside the Triangle. I was thinking maybe I could go into a smaller market, say Roanoke, Virginia, or Columbia, South Car
olina.”

  “And how would that affect Maggy?”

  “Exactly. That kid has been through so much this past year, with the diabetes, then Wendell, and losing the house. She’s been a trouper, but I just can’t pack her up and drag her to a strange town, especially with no family or friends for a support network.”

  “You know I’m always just a phone call away,” Parrish said. “Have you thought about trying something totally different?”

  “Like what? Aerospace engineer? Journalism is all I know. I’m too damn old to reinvent myself.”

  Parrish lunged forward and took a swipe at Riley’s drink.

  “Stop talking like that! If you’re too old, then so am I. And I can’t stand to think we’re done already—at forty-two.”

  “You can go back to lawyering anytime you feel like it,” Riley said. “But you won’t have to. You can sit back and restore houses all you want. Ed is Mr. Perfect. Steady Eddie. He’d never do you like Wendell did me.”

  Parrish put her sunglasses on and sank back into her chair. “Nobody knows what somebody else is capable of.”

  43

  The listings on TVJobs.com were depressing. They were either geographically impossible or economically laughable. Sunrise coanchor in Pierre, South Dakota. General assignment reporter in Naples, Florida. Investigative team leader in Newark, New Jersey.

  Riley clicked over from the listings, searching for a response to any of the feelers she’d put out to old friends and former colleagues in broadcasting. Nothing. Crickets.

  She heard footsteps coming down the hall toward the library, and quickly closed her laptop. She hadn’t told anybody but Parrish about her plan to return to work, and wasn’t eager to share that news just yet.

  “Riley?” Evelyn’s voice called. “The sheriff is here, and he’d like to speak to you.”

  “I’m in the library, Mama,” Riley called.

  Craig Schumann trailed Evelyn into the room. He held his baseball cap in his hands, and his white-blond hair still held its imprint.

  “Sorry to barge in on you,” he started. “I was on the island on business, and I did try calling, but I only got your voice mail, so I decided to drop by to fill you in on our progress.”

  “Whoops. I guess I left my phone upstairs,” Riley said, standing. She pointed to one of the wing chairs that flanked the fireplace. “Why don’t you have a seat? I’m anxious to hear what news you have.”

  “So am I,” Evelyn said, starting to sit in the other chair.

  “Uh, Mama, maybe the sheriff wants to talk to me in private,” Riley said.

  He turned and gave the older woman an apologetic smile. “If you don’t mind.”

  Evelyn sniffed. “Why would I mind being kicked out of a room in my own home?”

  Riley watched her leave. “Sorry about that. Are there any new leads on who killed my husband?”

  “I can’t get into any specifics,” the sheriff said. “I can tell you that, based on new information from the coroner, we’ve widened the time frame in which we believe he was assaulted.”

  “How so?”

  “Since the body was found in the water early Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend, we assumed it had taken a couple of days for it to wash up,” he explained. “However, the coroner took a look at the weather and tide patterns on the island in the week leading up to the murder, and he now believes your husband could have been killed as late as Friday evening.”

  “Forgive me, I don’t understand the significance of that,” Riley said.

  “It just means that he could have been killed either Thursday or Friday evening. More work for me, because it considerably increases the number of suspects.”

  She let that sink in. “Are you telling me that I’m a suspect?”

  He shrugged. “You, and everybody else who was on the island Friday night. And we know from the ferry manifest that at least a hundred and twenty more people arrived here on Friday. That’s in addition to the folks who were already here.”

  “But I told you where I was,” Riley objected. “Parrish and Ed Godchaux dropped me off here at Shutters around eight p.m. My daughter was with me. We didn’t leave the house. And my mother came in when she got home from the full-moon party. I’m not sure what time, but well before midnight. I was still sleeping the next morning when you arrived to tell me Wendell’s body had been found.”

  He uncrossed and recrossed his legs. “The problem is, theoretically speaking, you could have left here, after everybody in the house was asleep, killed your husband, and then returned in plenty of time.”

  “And why would I do that?” Riley asked.

  “Seems to me you’d have plenty of reasons. Let’s see, he’d driven you into debt, emptied your trust fund, and you suspected him of having an affair.”

  “I didn’t know any of that until after he was killed.”

  The sheriff smiled. “So you say.”

  “Wait. Who told you I thought Wendell was having an affair?”

  “Just some folks I’ve talked to around town.”

  “Are you referring to Melody Zimmerman? She’s the only one I’ve accused of sleeping with my husband. And, by the way, she didn’t deny it.”

  “I’m keeping an open mind,” the sheriff said.

  Riley was dumbfounded. “Are you really telling me I’m your number one suspect? That’s … mind-boggling.”

  “Not necessarily number one,” the sheriff said. “But you were a reporter once. I’m sure you know we don’t consider this a random stranger-to-stranger homicide. This island is small and fairly close-knit. A stranger—any stranger, would have stood out. No, ma’am, I feel sure whoever killed Wendell Griggs knew him, and from the impact of the blow to the back of his head, meant to do him harm.”

  “Lots of people on this island besides me knew Wendell, and could have wished him harm,” Riley pointed out. “I take it you know about his questionable business dealings.”

  “Oh, yes,” the sheriff said. He gave her a stern look. “You know you had no business ransacking your husband’s office. Tampering with what might be evidence in a homicide investigation only makes you look guiltier.”

  “I didn’t ‘tamper’ with anything. I made copies of financial records that I had every right to know about—both as Wendell’s widow and as somebody who was victimized by his fraudulent activities.”

  He shook his head in disgust. “This is what happens when amateurs go blundering around, trying to play detective. You have no way of knowing what evidence you might have destroyed.”

  Riley refused to be cowed by him. “How long did it take you to search that office, Sheriff? If I’d waited around for you, whoever killed him could have gotten into that office just as easily as I did, and removed any incriminating evidence.”

  “The fact is, I did search the office, and my people are following up on what we found. And since you bring it up, we’re aware that your husband borrowed heavily from several of your family members, which also makes them suspects.”

  “You mean my mother and my brother?” she asked incredulously. “My mother is seventy-two years old. She’s no murderer. Anyway, dozens of people must have seen her at the full-moon party that Friday night.”

  “Oh, sure, plenty of people saw her that night, and even saw her leave the party shortly after ten p.m. with your aunt,” he agreed. “But we have the same problem with your mother that we have with you. She could have easily left the house under cover of darkness that night or even Thursday night after she supposedly went to bed.”

  “My mother was the last person who would have killed my husband,” Riley said. “She adored Wendell, believed in him totally, despite all the evidence that he was a rat. In fact, she was furious when I told her I intended to divorce him. As far as Evelyn Nolan was concerned, Wendell Griggs was her second son. Hell, she thought he was the second coming.”

  “Sometimes people say one thing and do another,” the sheriff said. “Your brother, for instance.”

 
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The first time I interviewed him, he told me he was at his home, that old firehouse, all night Friday, after he arrived on the island. But when I started asking around the past couple of weeks, at least two people told me they remember that he arrived at the full-moon party alone, around eleven p.m.”

  “Billy went to the party that night?” Riley was dumbstruck.

  “Yes, ma’am. And when I went back to see him today, and questioned him a little closer, he finally did admit that he lied about going out that night, because he didn’t want his uh, boyfriend, to know he’d been partying.”

  “Scott happens to be Billy’s husband,” Riley said. “And I suppose Billy might not have wanted his partner to know he’d gone out, not because he’d decided to run out and kill Wendell, but because Scott’s very concerned about my brother’s drinking problem.”

  “So you acknowledge he does have a drinking problem?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Riley said. “My mother is in denial about it, but I’d say it’s an open secret that Billy is a high-functioning alcoholic. And he may be that, but he is not a murderer.”

  “We’ll see,” the sheriff said. “Of course, his whereabouts on Thursday night are unaccounted for, too. He says he was on the mainland, doing errands for your mother, but nobody else can vouch for him.”

  “And I’m sure nobody can place him anywhere near that marina either,” Riley said, doing a slow burn. “Because he didn’t kill Wendell. If you really want to figure out who did kill him, take a look at his business associates.”

  “We are doing just that,” Sheriff Schumann assured her.

  “And what kind of an alibi does Melody Zimmerman have for those two nights?” she asked.

  “You think she could have killed your husband? Why is that?”

  “She was his loan officer at the bank that went out of business when he defaulted on several million dollars in real estate loans,” Riley said. “He’d always banked with Wells Fargo before, and then suddenly he closes out all our accounts there and switches over to this tiny community bank? Where his friend Melody, from Kiwanis, happens to be vice president of lending? Don’t you find that kind of odd? Because I do.”